MB Quart speakers, world famous in the car, virtually unknown in the home
Written: Mar 07 '05
Product Rating:
Imaging:
Overall Sound:
Pros: Beautiful veneer and glass tops. Sweet, revealing tweeter.
Cons: Speaker can be fussy at the bottom, internal bracing is a joke.
The Bottom Line: Better than most mainstream brands. However a smart buyer can have better for the same money. Also other MB Quart speakers perform better.
Some things are just well known. Everybody knows that Winona Ryder is cute and sticky fingered, Star Jones will always be in some stage of fatness, and rapper DMX is a crack head. I'm not sure what that has to do with this review, but all those facts are well known.
MB Quart car audio is a lot like Sony Televisions, you own one, owned one, or considered owning one. If you’ve ever seriously dabbled in car audio, MB Quart is a name you know. A German company long known for high quality mobile speakers and crossovers at a reasonable price; it seems they’ve been dipping their toes in home audio for many years, but you’d hardly know it snooping in the electronics stores or classifieds.
About two years ago, I stumbled across my first pair of MB Quart tower speakers for the home and thought it was a joke or a scam. Soon I found myself arms flailing, like some evil robot “does not compute, does not compute.” It was like coming across an Apple iPod stove or Panasonic toilet, they just don’t seem right. After some investigation, it turned out to be true. After scoring my first pair of MB Quart towers (while building a sound system for a friend) I was truly impressed by them. Soon, I found myself selling off my entire set of surround sound speakers (again) in search of some MB Quarts. In the summer of 2004, I settled on the “S” line of MB Quart home speakers. I played it safe doing what I always do, I purchased the “bookshelf” speakers to get an idea of the sound, and go from there. So I purchased the QL-S530 books, and used them as main speakers for about two weeks. Impressed with them, I ordered up the QL-S830 towers.
Available finishes
The QL-S830 Tower is available wrapped in real wood veneer. You have your choice of a stained reddish cherry, a very light beech or crappy, plain, mega electronics hut “black.” One noticeable extra that stands out a bit is the fact that all the speakers in the “S” line (sans center channel) sport smoked glass tops. They sit in a recessed area at the top, and I mean sit. There is no interference fit of any kind, make note of that if you’ve got a crazy dog or child. If these towers tip, there will be glass flying.
Technical, specs, and details
The 830 Towers stand about 37 inches tall, 9" wide and 11.5" deep. They sport 3 drivers. Two of which are identical poly woofers (about 6") and one titanium dome tweeter in the middle. The woofers are thankfully made with a butyl rubber type surround instead of cheap foam that will eventually rot. At the back are the obligatory bi-amp connections, and binding posts are not five way. After loosening the nuts at the rear, your only choice is to insert bare wire, pins or banana plugs into the slit in the post.
The MB Quart website (and a few others) incorrectly state that the tower is a three way speaker. My investigation (my ears and one finger) concludes that these towers are in fact a 2 1/2 way design. This type of design has been very popular for many years, and there isn’t anything wrong with it, I’m just clarifying incorrect info given out by MB Quart. Both mid/woofers in fact carry low end bass, so that eliminates the three way designation period end of story. But one driver is pinched off above a certain frequency, handing off the midrange to one woofer. From there, the high frequencies are handed off to MB Quart’s signature Ti tweeter. The port is located a few inches below this array, and that’s unfortunate (more on that later).
One caveat for budding audiophiles, these tower speakers are rated at a rather low 4 ohms. So, owners of cheap, mass market receivers need not apply. Better built mass market receivers like Sony ES, Kenwood Sovereign, NAD, higher end Yamaha etc would be better suited. Better yet, separates might be better still, but I wouldn’t worry about something like Krell, these speakers aren’t in that league.
The sound
Over seven months, I played just about everything I’ve got in my music collection. Just about every DVD, and hours and hours of Halo 1 and 2. They’ve served me well in the movie and video game department, but when it comes to music, it’s been hit and miss. The QL-S830 towers are fussy, and unpredictable with certain material. But I must confess that my tastes run all over the place and I’ve never owned a speaker that did everything well. If that was the case, I’d still own those, and I wouldn’t be reviewing these.
In the Super Audio CD department, these towers spit out Miles, Krall, Sting, Beck, Aerosmith and rapper Ludacris to name a few. As for the now ancient, and ever popular CD, well I’ll give the short version. It spanned from Fiona Apple to Ice Cube, with Train, Tori Amos, Vanessa Carlton, and Joss Stone somewhere in the middle.
With rap music, and bombastic DVD material, these towers were capable of reaching low, like in the 40Hz zone. But that’s when they had such material. If the source was of normal bass levels, the 830s always sounded a tad thin, and lacking on the bottom. Even with robust material, the mid-bass area either sounded sucked out, woody, or small like a center channel. With the proper material, like say, a Diana Krall SACD in two channel mode, the vocals were smooth, and buttery. But with more complex material, vocals got buried just a bit. If you ask me, that goes back to a passive crossover that’s not of the highest quality.
My favorite here was the tweeter. MB Quart has made a name for themselves with their titanium dome tweeter. While adored in the car, some have complained of Ti tweeters being too bright and harsh in the home. Well the Ti tweeter here is brilliant, shimmering, and always ready to give lots of fine detail. It sounds a bit forward, but after having owned them, I see (hear) other tweeters as being a bit muddy.
Cons
The issues with the bass probably have to do with the construction of the 830. The tall slim towers have virtually no bracing to dampen vibration. Knock on any of the long panels, and you hear and feel a hollow, boing sound. Not good. I opened the tower, and was disappointed to see only a small brace near the center of the tower along with the standard poly fill type material. The fiber board is thicker than most speakers in the $500-$1000 price range (7/8" vs 3/4"). But the material isn’t particularly dense. This could be part of the reason the bass was sloppy at times, and tight at other times depending on the frequency. The fact that the speaker sounded lean with lots of material in spite of the dual woofer set-up could be directly related to the port placement.
In my small living room, a port at the back would have reinforced bass better, putting them in front seems to hurt them a bit at the bottom end. I’m also not a fan of the connectors at the back. Their quality is high, but I want 5 way posts. I like plugging in my banana plugs, period end of story there.
Pros
Tweeter loves to give detail and cut through the clutter of complex music. From fine brushes on cymbals to brilliant shimmering of cymbals being abused like step children, the Ti tweeters from MB Quart are enjoyable. Ditto for the way these tweeters handle the upper half of female vocals, reverb and piano decay. The mids and vocals are good with simple material, but suffer on more complex material.
With MB Quart just months ago giving an MSRP of $1699.00 for the pair (now removed from their site) the lack of bracing in the cabinet is inexcusable. And from just looking at it, the crossover is just too cheap looking. On the other hand, the finish is fine, and worthy of such a price point. My pair were finished in the stained red cherry. The veneer is beautiful, and the fit and finish is top notch all around. The glass tops added class, and made them distinct. For the record, these speakers are also made in Germany, not China or Taiwan. As far as I know, all MBs are made either in Germany or the USA.
Bottom line
Even with my complaints, these towers are a cut above just about everything at the mass market chains regardless of price. It’s kind of sad watching people spend money on the garbage at say Circuit city and Best Buy when better can be had for not much more and in some cases the same amount of money. Athena is the latest quasi hi-end speaker maker entering the big stores to pay the bills with the loss-leader item. Those cabinets are atrocious in comparison. Other garbage like say JBL, Yamaha, and of course KLH are easily bested by the 830. I recently sold my pair of 830s, and purchased another set of MBs not listed on Epinions at the moment. I like them so much, I'll keep them around for a good while.
These towers sit in a precarious position. For the $600 it will cost you to score a pair (used, closer to $1000 new) you could do better (in most areas) with Paradigm, B&W, Kef, and even the higher end offerings from Polk. But they are certainly worth looking at if you can find them for a low price, if only to enjoy the tweeters for awhile.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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